Corruption case bloomed from seeds of Safe Road probe

Ray Gibson, Tribune staff reporterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Whistle-blower Tony Berlin's first entry in his log of corruption at the secretary of state's office was dated in November 1993, but he and others had to work for years to get the attention of investigators.

Berlin, a license examiner at the driver's license facility in suburban McCook, finally got the FBI on board in 1997, but only after a powerful Democratic lawyer, another whistle-blower and a one-time investigator for former Gov. George Ryan put the feds on the track.

Operation Safe Road, as the probe came to be called, started as a license-for-bribes scandal, mushroomed into the illegal use of state workers for political campaigns and ultimately resulted in Monday's conviction of Ryan on all 18 counts of federal corruption charges.

Ryan's co-defendant, lobbyist Lawrence Warner, was also found guilty on 12 counts.

The investigation of Ryan and Warner has already changed the way politics is played in the state. It has made lobbyists more accountable and resulted in the tougher driver's license laws, experts say.

Even before Berlin first went to the FBI in 1996, he had taken his allegations of licenses given in exchange for bribes--including that of a truck driver involved in a 1994 Wisconsin crash that killed six children--to the secretary of state's inspector general's office.

Shortly after the accident, Berlin met with Russell Sonneveld, an investigator with the office.

Bauer "told me that our job was to protect George Ryan, not to embarrass him," Sonneveld testified at Ryan's trial. "We don't want to do anything that would embarrass George Ryan," Sonneveld recalled Bauer saying.

In a 1996 meeting with the FBI, Berlin showed a 70-page log of drivers he suspected had paid bribes to employees in the McCook office to obtain not only regular driver's licenses but also commercial driver's licenses for the operation of trucks.

The list, however, didn't provide the impetus to launch the probe.

One year later, Berlin took his list to Joseph Power, a powerful personal-injury lawyer with strong ties to the Democratic Party. Once Power hooked up with Sonneveld and another whistle-blowing employee, Tammy Sue Raynor, he pressured the U.S. attorney's office to investigate the allegations.

Raynor, who conducted license tests, had been urging an investigation of the selling of licenses since 1996 and even had her mother deliver a letter to Ryan's wife in 1998 summarizing her attempts to get official action on corruption at the McCook facility.

When Raynor went to the FBI, the federal probe moved swiftly.

Within a year, prosecutors had secured 12 convictions of corrupt employees and others.

Prosecutors alleged that hundreds of truck drivers--including Ricardo Guzman, who was involved in the fatal Wisconsin crash-- had paid hundreds of bribes for their licenses.

"It was very important for me to have some sort of conviction as part of [Ryan's] legacy," Raynor said.

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Operation Safe Road

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE INVESTIGATION

The federal probe began about nine years ago and led to the trial and conviction Monday of George Ryan, former Illinois secretary of state and governor.

1998

SEPT. 3: Authorities raid a driver's licensing facility, the first public indication a probe into the licenses-for-bribes scandal is under way.

NOV. 3: Ryan is elected governor.

1999

DECEMBER: Fourteen current or former secretary of state's office employees are convicted of taking bribes to fix driving tests.